Do The ‘Big Four’ Tech Monopolies Deserve Their Antitrust Investigation? Yes

Are the big social media sites monopolies? Are search engines? Do Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, and the rest so thoroughly dominate their fields — or work in combination to do so — to constitute a restraint of trade and harm to the consumer? The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced Tuesday that it aims to find out. The results of that investigation could drastically alter the internet landscape.

Fresh on the heels of a record-breaking $5 billion fine against Facebook for privacy violations, the antitrust effort looks at first like more of the same. But while privacy investigations are well-established, antitrust efforts against Facebook and the rest have until now been purely theoretical, as often on the left as on the right, but in neither case anywhere close to happening. Now, in a wide-ranging effort, the DOJ will determine if the increasing calls for regulation of social media will be allowed to become reality.

The Internet Isn’t What It Used To Be

DOJ’s press release says the department is “reviewing whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers.” First on any list of internet monopolies must be Google, which has dominated the online search market for years.

Google got there the way most businesses did in the early, free days of the internet: by being good at what it did. Only ‘90s kids may remember Lycos, AltaVista, and Ask Jeeves, but these were once big names in internet search. It was a new industry, as was the internet, and competition was fierce. Google entered later, but so superior was its product that other search engines rapidly became obsolete.